Porridge Recipe — Servant of the Lake Demo

Preparing Mr. Aldous Vanderboom’s favorite breakfast is the Demo’s central inventory chain. The maid assigns it immediately after you sign the servant contract, and nearly every other house puzzle feeds into or out of the kitchen stove. Until the small pot holds finished porridge, Aldous’s bedroom stays a secondary concern— except for the optional easter egg that savvy players complete first.

The recipe is not hidden: a note on the kitchen table lists the steps plainly. The challenge is gathering scattered ingredients, lighting the stove, and satisfying every state flag Rusty Lake checks before the pot becomes clickable.

Recipe from the kitchen note

The note beside the oats bowl states Aldous’s preferred method:

1. Put the pot on the stove.
2. Add milk and oats to the pot.
3. Add sugar.
4. Heat the porridge.

That text is the authoritative order. Sugar arrives last because the locked cabinet requires the portrait code 235 first.

Ingredient and tool locations

Item	Where to find it
Small pot	Upstairs right room, on the shelf above the locked breakfast cabinet
Sugar	Inside the cabinet opened with code 235 — see Demo codes
Milk	Crate near the maid in the entrance area
Oats	Bowl on the kitchen table (left door from entrance)
Wood	Kitchen floor or stove area (left wing)
Matches	Chair in the central hall after giving the dead mouse to the cat
Dead mouse	Low hole in the wall (reachable during upstairs exploration)

Collect the pot early so you can enter 235 on the cabinet below the shelf. Sugar cannot be skipped; milk and oats alone produce porridge Aldous will still reject later when berries become necessary.

Stove chain step by step

Work in the kitchen once wood, matches, milk, oats, and sugar are in inventory.

1. Place wood inside the stove chamber.
2. Light the wood with matches.
3. Close the stove door— an open door prevents heating.
4. Set the small pot on top of the stove.
5. Add milk to the pot.
6. Add oats to the pot.
7. Add sugar to the pot.
8. Wait for the heat state to resolve, then take the pot with finished porridge.

If the pot cannot be picked up, audit every flag instead of repeating portrait visits:

• Fire is lit and the stove door is closed.
• The pot sits on the stove, not in inventory.
• All three ingredients were added inside the pot.
• You unlocked sugar with 235 already.

Matches and the cat block

Matches are gated behind a cat occupying a hall chair. Retrieve the dead mouse from the wall hole during your upstairs loop, return to the central hall, and feed the mouse to the cat. When the cat leaves, take the matches from its chair. Without matches, the wood never burns and the porridge chain stalls even if every food item is ready.

Serving porridge to Aldous

Carry the finished pot to Aldous’s room. You need the bowl and spoon from his table and dresser drawers before serving.

1. Give Aldous the bowl and spoon.
2. Add the porridge from your pot to the bowl.
3. Listen to his dialogue— he will say something is missing.

That missing element is intentional. Plain porridge advances the story but does not complete breakfast. Open the window, feed the earlobe (from shaving) to the bird, use the returned key on the top dresser drawer, and collect berries. Add berries to the bowl, then solve the insect and berries puzzle before spoon-feeding Aldous enough times to clear the meal gate.

Common mistakes

• Heating an empty pot — Add all three ingredients before expecting a collectible result.
• Forgetting to close the stove — Rusty Lake treats an open door as unheated.
• Skipping sugar after a wrong code attempt — Re-read portrait code 235 rather than trying random digits.
• Serving before inventory sweep — Bowl, spoon, razor, slippers, and cloth are separate morning gates documented on the Demo walkthrough.

Relation to other Demo puzzles

Porridge sits between portrait observation and bedroom routine puzzles. Codes (235), portraits, kitchen layout, and Aldous’s bowl insect are siblings under the puzzles hub. For room-by-room navigation while gathering items, use the estate map and rooms guide.

Full game note

The Demo kitchen is a single left-wing room with one stove. The August 13, 2026 full release may add weekend meals, guest breakfasts, or alchemical ingredients Rusty Lake has not shown. Treat any speculation about multi-day recipes as prep content, not as extensions of this Demo checklist.